The New York Times’ ‘Knockout Game’ Denial

The New York Times no longer just ignores racial violence. Now the Gray Lady actively denies it.

Over the weekend, the New York Times questioned whether recent reports of black mob violence in the form of the “Knockout Game” are really just “urban legends.” Like Big Foot.

NBC, ABC and other networks were happy to follow the leader: They produced similar stories detailing the attacks — denying racial violence has anything to do with them.

As much as The Times wishes the Knockout Games were just another urban legend, here’s the difference: Big Foot is alive. And on videos, thousands of them, showing black mob violence that local press often dismisses as “random” attacks from “unruly teenagers.”

In St. Louis, where the Knockout Game first gained popularity, a judge two years ago said one man alone was responsible for 300 cases of the Knockout Game.

But The Times ignored that.

The newspaper editor says stories about black mob violence without statistics are anecdotal. Cherry picking. But people who present statistics are accused of stereotyping. Profiling.

Either way, following The Times formula, reporters produce stories like over the weekend in Philadelphia, where the local NBC affiliate reported on the latest example of the Knockout Game without citing its central organizing feature: The race of the attacker. And the race of the victim.

The NBC affiliate picks up the story:

The male victim was riding his bike along the 900 block of Catherine Street in the Bella Vista section of the city just before 8 p.m. on Friday when he was randomly punched by a group of teens, police said. 

 After being hit, police say the cyclist asked the group — made up of five teen boys and three teen girls — why they hit him. Without answering, the group then continued beating the man.

First things first: The attack was not random. The attackers were black. The victim was white. Fitting a pattern of dozens of cases of black mob violence in Philadelphia over the last two years. Many documented in White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Racial Violence and How the Media Ignore it.

In one of the Philadelphia attacks, the victim asked the same question. But got a different answer:

“Why are you doing this?” the victim asked his attackers.

“Its not our fault you can’t fight,” they said, laughing. As they continued to beat him.

Trevor Godfrey knows the Knockout Game is real. He lived it, too. Last year in Springfield, Missouri, the president of a black fraternity was having a party when Trevor, who lived next door, went to open his car door.

Twenty black people from the party stood 20 feet away.

“Do you play football?” one asked him.

Trevor does not remember answering. He does not remember the punches breaking bones in his face. Or the teeth getting knocked out. Or the seizures he was having when his roommates found him soon after.

“The same people attacked one of the roommates earlier,” said Sherry Godfrey, Trevor’s mom, who recently appeared on the Sean Hannity to talk about her Knockout Game experience. “And another college student a few weeks later. But they were never arrested. Nor did the story make local papers until one year later.”

Mayor Francis Slay of St. Louis knows the Knockout Game is real. Slay and his bodyguard had just left a Pink Floyd tribute show and were riding by a city library in October 2011 when they saw a man in the gutter, unconscious.

That man was 51-year old Matt Quain, who had been on his way home from a local grocery story, ready to celebrate a Cardinals’ victory in the World Series.The Post-Dispatch reports some of the details:

“Eighteen teenagers jumped on him and started hitting him with bricks for no apparent reason,” said Charlie Quain, the victim’s nephew.  Quain’s uncle was walking home with a neighbor when he was attacked in front of a public library. Nothing was taken from him, and he was able to escape before things escalated.

The game has caused deaths in the past.

“You can just see the lines and the bruising where the edge of the bricks were hitting him,” Quain said. “His jaw is wired shut. It has to be for at least six weeks.”

Quain was left in a neck brace, with a broken jaw, black eye and stitches in his face.

The Mayor saw the attackers “saunter” away. Soon, seven black people were in custody.

A few days after assault, Quain’s family pleaded for an end to the “sickening attacks.”

Police held a meeting at the school were most of the suspects attended. Please stop the Knockout Game, they begged.

Two weeks later, a 54-year-old man was another victim. Two of the people arrested were at the meeting.

The Quain trial was supposed to begin in January. Instead, the district attorney dropped charges because a 13-year-old witness did not show up for the trial.

Mayor Slay said it was a case of  witness tampering. “My strong guess is that she was intimidated, threatened not to testify which is why she did not show up,” Slay said to the Post Dispatch. “The case fell apart and the second-degree assault charges were dropped, followed by cheers and high-fives among the defendants.”

There was also plenty of jubilation on Facebook, which the Post-Dispatch reported. Including a dispatch from a black person known as the Knockout King because he was universally acclaimed to be the master of this athletic art form:

“FREE ALL MY TKO GUYS.”

TKO, of course, is a boxing term for Technical Knock Out and is also a popular graffiti tag in that neighborhood.

Despite repeated pleas for peace from police, newspapers and the Quain family, a few days after the charges were dropped, the alleged assailants were back. And they were after Quain. Again.

KMOV TV talked to the shaken Quain: “I looked up and I was flinching because he had his fists up in the air,” Quain said.  Quain then pulled out a can of pepper spray and the accused attackers fled the scene.”

Despite the otherwise excellent coverage, at no time did the Post-Dispatch ever include a description of the attackers that included their race.

Which is in keeping with standards suggested by the Society of Professional Journalists on how to report racial crime: Don’t.

The paper even disabled the comments section of news stories associated with this and other Knockout attacks because readers were demanding to know why the newspaper refused to report on the race of the predators.

The same paper that constantly reports on black caucuses, black churches, black colleges, black TV, black radio, and other black institutions — with many stories written by members of the National Association of Black Journalists –  says race may be relevant to everything else. But not crime.

“Regarding the local newspaper shutting down the comments section on stories related to The Knockout Game, you should note it is actually now much worse than that,”  said Deb, a St. Louis resident. “Because citizens were so angry at purposeful non-reporting and under-reporting of many stories here in St. Louis, they would take to the Comments Section of high profile crime stories in the online edition of our local paper to discuss & share what they know that the local paper was not reporting.”

“The Post-Dispatch got tired of being made to look bad and incompetent when the Comments Section had more useful and factual information than the original newspaper article did.”

Not discussing the race of the assailants is the most cherished rules of the Knockout Game. The Times figured that much out.

Earlier this year, Demetrius Murphy, one of those accused in the Quain Knockout Game, was shot and killing trying to break into a St. Louis home. He was 15. His grandfather compared Demetrius to Trayvon Martin, and said, despite his criminal history he was a good boy and never wanted to hurt anyone.

Also part of The Times’ urban legend scenario is St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce. KMOV talked to Joyce about her Facebook posting on the Knockout Game.

Joyce “talked to a teenager who claimed to be part of the “Knockout Kings,” a group that likes to attack random people on the street. There have been a number of serious injuries – even a death associated with the attacks. Joyce says the teenager claims to have knocked out more than 300 people.”

That did not matter to The Times.

In Philadelphia, Temple University hired a community organizer to help them treat racial violence as a public health problem. He said he was not too worried about it, because it was just “kids, blowing off some steam.”

But the thug point of view is already well represented at The Times: Either it is not happening. Or not important.

Marvell Weaver has a different story. One with plenty of “street cred.” Weaver got famous earlier this year when he invented a new twist on the Knockout Game: Use a taser.

Weaver jammed a taser — KL-800 Type Stun Gun capable of generating 1.8 million volts –  into the ribs of a man waiting for his daughter at a school bus stop. He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The man pulled a .40 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver and shot Weaver as he tried to escape to the getaway van where two of his accomplices waited.

According to MLive.com:

“Weaver ran, sat down across the street, his leg going numb, bleeding. Pleading.

“‘I’m sorry, please don’t kill me, I don’t know why I did that, I’m high you know, I just wanna go home,’” the teen told the man who had just shot him.”

From his jail cell, Weaver contributed to a on-line forum that asked “have you played the knockout game?

“I played about 6 or 7 times but the last time was my last. Decided to taze the poor fella then shortly after got shot 2 times. I’m in jail for a year but I’m a changed man now.”

ABC News took the denial to a new level over the weekend, when it reported that a Denver man was one of the “first people in that city to be a victim of the “knockout game.”

This contradicts earlier reports of similar racial violence that rocked Denver in 2011. It took a while, but the black mob violence eventually became so blatant and so public that even the ABC affiliate could not ignore it any more. Here’s a portion of that report:

A couple dozen arrest warrant affidavits unsealed Friday offer chilling insights into the 26 racially-motivated “blitz attacks,” which stretched from July 17 to Nov. 17.

One unidentified suspect told police “that the members of his gang earn status in the gang by beating up ‘white dudes,’” according to court records. He added that the gangs targeted “drunk white guys,” exiting bars and nightclubs in the entertainment district.

The suspects allegedly bragged about knocking out white victims with one punch to the head. Victims lying on the ground were “stomped” and even tossed through glass windows.

In the latest report, ABC trotted out the same experts as the other national news outlets, denying the Knockout Games have anything to do with race. They also came up with a solution: “Juvenile delinquency experts say a good punishment for these teens would be empathy training, such as volunteering at a homeless shelter.”

Even The Times did not go that far: Even a Timesman knows it makes little sense to offer solutions to a problem that does not exist.

related - 
NY: Arrests Over 'Knockout' Attack on 12 Year-Old Jewish Boy. Teen arrested for allegedly attacking 12 year old Jewish boy in New York, part of wave of violent anti-Semitic 'game.'
US Anti Semitism in New York - Teen gangs accused of playing ‘Knock outthe Jew’ in Brooklyn

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NY: Arrests Over 'Knockout' Attack on 12 Year-Old Jewish Boy. Teen arrested for allegedly attacking 12 year old Jewish boy in New York, part of wave of violent anti-Semitic 'game.'

"Knockout Game" anti-Semitic attacks

New York has recently witnessed a spate of anti-Semitic attacks, as part of a wider phenomenon known as the "knockout game," in which gangs of black youths sucker punch innocent passersby - particularly targeting Jews in parts of New York. In response, police have arrested the alleged attacker of a 12 year old Jewish boy who was a victim of the "game."

The suspected attacker, a 13 year old, was charged with third-degree assault and aggravated harassment, reports CBS. He was released to his mother's custody until his appearance in court on Wednesday.

The Jewish boy who was attacked on November 6 in Crown Heights asked not to be 

identified. He is a religious yeshiva student, and said the attack could have been prevented if "the boys and teens would know that there’s always a G-d watching them, and they wouldn’t only be afraid of the police."

After the boy was attacked witnesses reported the black youths jubilantly shouted "we got him!"

The attack prompted two Crown Heights public officials, Public Advocate-elect Letitia James and Councilman David Greenfield and Councilman-elect Chaim Deutsch, to offer a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the attackers.

Black youths have generally targeted visibly Jewish men, but children such as the12 year old, as well as women have also been victims.

The wanton assault has reached the point where even a 78 year old Jewish woman was recently targeted and beaten.

Rabbi Yaacov Behrman, director of the Jewish Future Alliance, told Arutz Sheva last week that the Jewish community in Crown Heights met with local government representatives and leaders of the African American community to discuss preventative measures against the rampant anti-Semitic attacks.

Behrman further noted that police presence in Jewish neighborhoods was being boosted to counter the attacks.

related - 

US Anti Semitism in New York - Teen gangs accused of playing ‘Knock out the Jew’ in Brooklyn

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Cheering a new ‘I Hate Israel Handbook’

Coinciding with last weekend’s 75th anniversary of the “Kristallnacht” pogrom by the Nazis, several institutions in Berlin, including the Jewish Museum, organized an “International Conference on Current Phenomena of Antisemitism in Europe.” Given that the focus of the conference was supposedly on “current” manifestations of antisemitism in Europe, it was not at all promising that the keynote speaker – Oxford University philosopher Brian Klug – has made a name for himself by arguing that the demonization of the Jewish state is not “necessarily anti-semitic.” And while Klug has spent much energy opposing the notion that there is a “new antisemitism” that targets Israel, he seems eager to embrace the relatively new concept of “Islamophobia.”

When critics of Klug published a dossier detailing their objections to his views, the Oxford professor immediately hinted that he might take legal action, because his “attorney…confirmed that the dossier is defamatory.” That left me wondering if Klug (and his attorney, of course!) feels there is anything “defamatory” about the fact that he is being enthusiastically defended and cheered on by a site like Mondoweiss, which has often been accused of publishing antisemitic material.

In recent weeks, one of the biggest stories at Mondoweiss was the publication of a new book by Max Blumenthal, one of the site’s heroes. As one critical reviewer elsewhere noted, Blumenthal’s “Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel” is really a “I Hate Israel Handbook” brimming with implicit equations of Israel with Nazis, which “could have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed) without a single word change once it’s translated into Arabic.”

Unsurprisingly for those of us who are less sophisticated about antisemitism than Brian Klug, there is a big market for a new “I Hate Israel Handbook.” The Israel-haters at theElectronic Intifada jubilantly announced that the book was at one point “the number one seller on Amazon.com in the category of Israeli history.” So perhaps we can imagine that just as Brian Klug shared his thoughts on “Current Phenomena of Antisemitism” with his audience at the Berlin conference, some Mondoweiss (and Brian Klug) fans and other Israel-haters were savoring Blumenthal’s screed – and perhaps they even happened to read the chapters on the Israeli-run concentration camp and the Israeli-perpetrated Kristallnacht?

It is arguably no coincidence that a site like Mondoweiss would champion both Oxford philosopher Brian Klug and anti-Israel propagandist Max Blumenthal. Indeed, the fairly impressive endorsements Blumenthal has been able to get for his screed could be seen as the fruit of Klug’s endlessly repeated mantra that there should be precious few red lines when it comes to criticizing Israel. In one of his first articles on this subject Klug wrote some ten years ago:

“In his book, The Case for Israel, Alan Dershowitz argues that when criticism of Israel ‘crosses the line from fair to foul’ it goes ‘from acceptable to anti-semitic’.

People who take this view say the line is crossed when critics single Israel out unfairly; when they apply a double standard and judge Israel by harsher criteria than they use for other states; when they misrepresent the facts so as to put Israel in a bad light; when they vilify the Jewish state; and so on. All of which undoubtedly is foul. But is it necessarily anti-semitic?

No, it is not.”

Let’s imagine for a moment how Professor Klug would feel about this version:

“when critics single Islam out unfairly; when they apply a double standard and judge Islam by harsher criteria than they use for other religions; when they misrepresent the facts so as to put Islam in a bad light; when they vilify the Muslim religion...[this] undoubtedly is foul. But is it necessarily Islamophobic?

No, it is not.”

Of course, one could try this with Blacks, Roma, gays, or whatever other group or entity one would like to vilify while claiming the authority of Oxford philosopher Brian Klug to argue that none of this means that one is “necessarily” bigoted.

However, as we all know, the Klug-definition for bigotry is considered acceptable only when it comes to Israel. So Max Blumenthal and many others can apply double standards and judge Israel by harsher criteria than any other state; they canmisrepresent the facts so as to put Israel in a bad light; and they can freely vilify the Jewish state without risking to be denounced as “necessarily anti-semitic.”

Now let’s have a look at some of those who were happy to endorse Blumenthal’s “I Hate Israel Handbook.”

The top editorial endorsement featured on the book’s Amazon page is unsurprisingly from The Guardian: “Goliath…shows in forensic detail the reality of the Israeli mainstream’s embrace [of] blatant racism against Arabs and Africans.” It is noteworthy that The Guardian is saying here that the vast majority of Israelis are blatantly racist: the rightwing is racist by definition (certainly by The Guardian’s definition), and since the mainstream is also racist, only a small minority of far-left Israelis are perhaps not racist. It’s also safe to assume that The Guardian is only talking about Jewish Israelis here – so at least Arab Israelis may not be racist…

Ironically enough, another warm endorsement for Blumenthal’s screed comes from The American Conservative (TAC), nicely illustrating that when it comes to the evils of Israel, a supposedly “progressive” publication like The Guardian and a paleoconservative publication like TAC can see eye to eye.

Then there is an endorsement from Stephen Walt – with his full institutional affiliation: Professor of International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Walt praises Blumenthal’s “[b]rave reporting,” adding: “Makes me wish he wrote for the New York Times." Given that earlier this year, Walt served as guest contributor for the Hamas mouthpiece MEMO, it is arguably not surprising that he would happily endorse a book that “could have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club.”

Another high-profile academic endorsement for Blumenthal’s screed comes from Rashid Khalidi, though the Columbia professor apparently didn’t want his institutional affiliation displayed. Khalidi praises the book because he feels it “lifts the carefully maintained veil concealing the reality of Israel as it actually is today” and he deplores that this reality “is elided in most reportage from the region.” Obviously Khalidi has a point: with all the bad press Israel is getting, the ‘unveiling’ of its concentration camps and Kristallnachts is still something that is usually found only on the lunatic Jew-hating fringes.

Needless to say, Blumenthal also made sure to collect endorsements from some well-known Jews. Charles H. Manekin, Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center of Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland, likes to describe himself as a “cultural Zionist” – that is to say, a “Zionist” who cares about Jewish culture but not about a Jewish state (– and non-philosophers might think that makes him an anti-Zionist…). His enthusiasm about Blumenthal’s “I Hate Israel Handbook” was such that he professed: “I would like to send a copy…to every Jew I know.”

In addition to these endorsements from academics, there is much praise from writers who work or worked for influential publications: Glenn Greenwald, who has just left The Guardian, apparently found it “stunningly insightful” to read about Israel’s concentration camps and Kristallnachts; David Hirst, also affiliated with The Guardian, worries that Israel will be destroyed by the “virulence of a cancer, both institutional and popular, which [is….] essentially of its own racist and colonialist making;” award-winning formerNew York Times reporter Chris Hedges considers Blumenthal’s screed one of the most “fearless and honest books ever written about Israel;” and long-time Ha’aretz columnist Akiva Eldar also couldn’t help feeling impressed by Blumenthal’s relentless demonization of Israel.

Naturally, Blumenthal’s “I Hate Israel Handbook” was also warmly praised by his trusted comrades from Mondoweiss and The Electronic Intifada. And unsurprisingly, Blumenthal’s work is also much appreciated by the Jew-haters at  David Duke’s website:

“Blumenthal’s writings and videos are extremely valuable in the study of Jewish extremism, as he is not shy about using his Jewish name and looks to gain access to Jewish extremists in order to document the ugliest side of Zionism…as it pertains to Israel.”

While this is an endorsement Max Blumenthal chose not to quote on his Amazon page, I think that this is exactly the company the people who praised Blumenthal’s screed deserve. But I have no illusions that any of them would feel embarrassed by the fact that a propaganda tract they endorse is also praised by far-right antisemites. Moreover, even those who have prestigious academic positions know that, thanks in part to efforts like those of Oxford philosopher Brian Klug, there is no price to pay for cheering the vilification of the Jewish state – and therefore inevitably the Jews who sustain it – in ways that would be completely unacceptable if any other group with a long history of persecution and discrimination was the target. 

US Anti Semitism in New York - Teen gangs accused of playing ‘Knock outthe Jew’ in Brooklyn

A rash of violent anti-Semitic attacks in Brooklyn, New York recently left a local rabbi wondering if the wave of assaults is part of a game of “Knock out the Jew.”

Those were the words that Rabbi Yaacov Behrman had for CBS New York this week when he weighed in on a string of recent incidents that have taken Brooklyn by storm.

The CBS affiliate reported that the New York Police Department is now investigating the series of crimes - at least one of which was captured on a surveillance camera.

In that incident, Behrman said a local Jewish man was sucker-pushed solely because of his ethnicity.

“He was actually holding an expensive camera. And they punched him and nothing was stolen,” he told CBS. “And they’re playing a game: ‘knockout.’ ‘Knock out the Jew,’ maybe. And they’re going around the neighborhood punching Jews.”

The NYPD has confirmed that assaults aimed at Jewish men in New York City have indeed taken place as of late, and are aware of anti-Semitic graffiti as well, such as spray-painted swastikas added to area sidewalks.

“I think there have been a total of eight since September, middle of September,” Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in reference to the total number of incidents that have recently taken place in Brooklyn. 

Local Jewish men say it’s not just a coincidence that certain people are being targeted, though. Such allegations have prompted the NYPD to investigate whether the incidents in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood were hate crimes.

“It is difficult to tell [if it is a pattern] at this time,” Kelly said, according to the Gothamist. He added that the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force has indeed taken the helm of the investigation. “Obviously, some of it is based on descriptions. The crowds change in size, so it’s hard to tell if it is a clear pattern.”

Brooklyn assemblyman Dov Hikind told CBS that these attacks aren’t muggings, though, and that he thinks victims are being attacked just because they are Jews.

"Unacceptable. And that's exactly what the situation is right now," Hikind told NY1.

Police are currently scouring surveillance camera footage to investigate the incidents, and witness statements so far suggest a high likelihood of hate crimes being committed. In one incident profiled by the CBS affiliate, a 12-year-old boy dressed in traditional Jewish clothing was recently hit “on the side of the face, full force” by a local teen, according to the victim's father.

“The two attackers ran back to the group screaming, ‘We got him’ and received a roaring cheer,” Behrman told New York Daily News.

As recently as last weekend, a group of black males allegedly attacked a Jewish resident during an unprovoked incident in which Behrman again said nothing was stolen. That incident was captured on camera as well, but as events like this continue, residents are worried that little is being done.

"When I heard of an incident that may have been a bias crime, be it religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation, we need to come together as a community to say no we're not going to tolerate this anymore," district leader Jeffrey Hamilton told WABC.

“We are extremely disappointed” that no arrests have been made, Behrman said. “We call on the NYPD to increase their efforts, to include larger police presence during prime hours and to distribute posters with identifying information to insure the perpetrators are brought to justice.” 

Outside of Israel, New York has the largest Jewish population in the world.

RT News

Is Anti-Semitism Back in Europe?

The status of Jews in Europe remains a delicate one. At least that is what a new survey by the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights suggests. 

The survey, to be released in full in November, found that nearly one quarter of European Jews avoid doing things or wearing symbols that could allow others to identify them as Jewish. And the numbers are worse in some places: Forty-nine percent of the Swedish utopia’s Jews avoid recognizably Jewish clothing and symbols in public. 

Eighty-eight percent of French Jews said antisemitism has become worse in the last five years. Thirty percent of Hungarian Jews have experienced an antisemitic incident in the past twelve months. And around Europe, two-thirds said reporting assaults and other antisemitic incidents to the police wasn’t worth it, or wouldn’t make a difference.

Surveys like this cast doubt on the belief that the history of the West has been one of steady progress. Sure, the Europeans seem to have finally been civilized, with their bloody, multicentury stream of wars and revolutions supplanted by social democracy and multinational union. But in 2012, reports Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center, Franceled the world in violent antisemitic incidents.

Who is to blame? The media would have you believe it’s the far right—Greece swarming with Golden Dawn blackshirts and cryptofascists flexing their muscles almost everywhere east of the Elbe. And the Kantor Center documents plenty of far-right violence. But participants in the EU survey, many drawn from Western Europe, saw it differently—just 19 percent pinned it on the extreme right. Twenty-two percent faulted the extreme left. But Europe’s Muslims are cited by 27 percent.

This brand of antisemite has imported the hatred of Jews to countries where it was historically less severe, such as Denmark. Tablet, a Jewish online magazine, relates the taleof Martin Krasnik, a journalist and a liberal Jewish Dane who decided to take a long walk through the immigrant neighborhood of Nørrebro with a yarmulke perched atop his head. He’s quickly harassed—flipped off, told to “go to hell, Jew,” told to his remove his cap, and so forth. There were plenty of threats—men tell him that “we have a right to kick your ass,” that his religion may tell him to wear the yarmulke but that it doesn’t tell him to get killed, that “my cousin killed a guy for wearing a ‘Jewish hat.’” Krasnik was extremely uncomfortable, telling Tablet’s Michael Moynihan that he thought, “If I keep doing this for an hour or two, something will happen. And if I did this everyday, I would get my ass kicked around.”

The rise of Muslim antisemitism in Europe is well documented—and widely ignored.

 Krasnik told Moynihan that the press and other elites give the phenomenon little attention and little energy—“The mayor of Copenhagen says ‘we will not accept antisemitism, but that we shouldn’t overdramatize the situation. We should breathe calmly, he said.” 

Moynihan noted that some school principals in heavily immigrant areas have begun warning Jewish parents away. Europe’s multiculturalists prefer to apologize for their more troublesome charges—and to bend native society to accommodate foreigners’ prejudices. Moynihan, again:

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Briefing. Lawfare and Boycott Updates.

Anti-Israel activists call for boycott of Philips

Anti-Israel activists recently called for the boycott of products made by Philips, a Dutch multinational company. According to a letter circulated by BDS extremists, Philips has been operating in Israel since 1948 and in 1998 went on to create Philips Electronics (Israel) Ltd. They add that the company has 600 employees and has generated hundreds of millions of dollars. Anti-Israel campaigners note that Philips has a medical technology center in Haifa as well. During World War II, the company's factory in the Netherlands worked to protect Jews employed on the premises. Fritz Philips went on to save the lives of 382 Jews, an achievement later recognized by Yad Vashem.

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BDS extremists demonstrate against Israeli musician, chant "shoot the Jew"

BDS supporters in South Africa recently protested a performance by Daniel Zamir, an Israeli musician. The concert was held at Wits University in Johannesburg. Several anti-Semitic protesters started singing "shoot the Jew," as well as chanting “there is no such thing as Israel." Muhammed Desai, coordinator of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) South Africa, stressed that the protest was effective because they made "those attending the concert uncomfortable. I am an alumnus of this university, they are the ones that are outsiders here, and we want them to feel like outsiders. You have blood on your hands. You think you can use our university to cleanse your image.” The protest was organized by Wits University Palestine Solidarity Committee and BDS South Africa.

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BDS operatives call on Norway to boycott Israeli construction companies

BDS operatives recently called on Norway's Ministry of Finance to reinstate a ban on doing business with two Israeli construction companies. The operatives, belonging to Palestinian and American "civil society" organizations, allege that Africa-Israel and Danya Cebus support Israeli construction in "occupied" Judea and Samaria. Last month, Norway decided to lift the ban on investing funds from its Global Pension Fund after Israeli corporate officials provided evidence that they were not involved in any "illegal settlement" construction. BDS extremists, nonetheless, claim that the companies continue to violate international law. The operatives called on the Ministry to "adhere to the same standards that led to the 2010 decision to divest from the two companies due to their long history of settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law…This case and others prove that statements by companies involved in supporting Israeli human right abuses and violations of international law cannot be trusted." Their BDS letter was signed by representatives from the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), Adalah-New York, The Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, and The Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.
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New Olympics chief linked to pro-boycott group

Thomas Bach, the recently elected head of the International Olympic Committee, was strongly supported by Arab countries over his linkage to a pro-boycott group. Bach was president of the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a group which helps connect German companies and the Arab world. One of the chamber's roles is to help firms make sure their products for export do not include Israeli components. Jewish community leaders in Germany have criticized Bach for his involvement with anti-Israel organization that advocates boycotts.

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The Briefing:
Israel, and the Jewish community at large, is beset by a dangerous international campaign utilizing new strategies to delegitimize the Jewish State. Unable to defeat the IDF militarily or weaken the population through persistent terrorism, the extremist groups, Islamic terrorists and their rogue regime allies have embarked upon a global effort to demonize and isolate Israel, casting it as a pariah state.The widespread Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and its utilization of Lawfare, is the main component of the "Durban Strategy" adopted by Israel's opponents at the U.N.'s Human Rights Conference in 2001. Tactics like the Gaza Flotilla, the effort overseas to indict IDF officers and elected officials for war crimes, blood libels in the media, the boycotting of Israeli academics, and the persistent debate over whether a Jewish State has a right to exist, are having a perilous impact on Israel's security and diplomatic capabilities. As the Anti-Defamation League has stated: "The BDS movement at its very core is anti-Semitic."

These reports are offered to better inform the Jewish community and Israel's supporters worldwide on how lawfare and boycotts are used by hate groups to try to destroy Israel through other means.

Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center

Posted with Blogsy

The Helen Thomas Cover-Up: Media Whitewash Bigoted Record

Helen Thomas, the first woman to work as White House bureau chief for a news service and first female officer of the National Press Club, died on July 20 at age 92. Prominent obituaries in The Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and USA Today  among others minimized to near-invisibility her final quarter century as an anti-Jewish bigot. An anti-Israel, anti-Jewish “get the hell out of Palestine and go home to Germany and Poland” mini-tirade—caught on video by Rabbi David Nesenoff—led to Hearst Newspapers’ announcement of her “resignation” in June, 2010. Obituary writers routinely noted that Thomas had apologized, stressing her hopes for Palestinian-Israeli peace. They omitted her Dec. 2, 2010 disavowal of the “apology,” which had not corrected Thomas’ false imputation that Jews were aliens in Palestine—eretz Yisrael. The Detroit News reported that, talking with reporters, she said, “I stand by it. I told the truth”  in the “Jews to Germany” declaration. “I paid a price but it's worth it to speak the truth.” According to The News, she then “took her remarks further.” In a speech to an Arab American audience Thomas reiterated the antisemitic canard of Jewish control: “‘We are owned by the propagandists against the Arabs. There's no question about that,” she said, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists. No question in my opinion. They put their money where their mouth is.” On her death, many, like The Post’s Patricia Sullivan and USA Today’s Owen Ullmann characterized Thomas as firing “sharp” or “hardball” questions at presidents of both parties. But as far back as the first intifada and Operation Desert Storm, she was hectoring President George H. W. Bush about what she called Israel’s occupation of Arab land—in 1948. Thomas worked for United Press International, once one of America’s leading wire services, for 60 years. Her press eulogies noted that she covered every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama and along the way broke a number of “glass ceilings” for woman journalists. Two years before her videotaped outburst to Rabbi Nesenoff, CAMERA had noted what major news outlets preferred to ignore, Thomas’ antisemitism (“Editor & Publisher Defends the Indefensible Helen Thomas,” Aug. 28, 2008). Quite a record In extract: * During a 1991 press conference, one day after Operation Desert Storm allies started bombing Iraq, President George H. W. Bush denounced Saddam Hussein’s Scud missile attacks against Israel. Thomas, who virtually always labeled Israeli self-defense as anti-Arab aggression, asked: “Mr. President, two days ago you launched a war, and war is inherently a two-way street. Why should you be surprised or outraged when there is an act of retaliation?” Bush replied: “Against a country that’s innocent and is not involved in it?” Bush called Saddam Hussein’s attacks against Israeli population centers “an outrage.” Thomas, then still UPI White House reporter, changed the subject. Ignoring that Iraq was continuing a brutal occupation of Kuwait, she said “why is it that any move for—move for peace is considered an end run at the White House these days?” President Bush asks “end run?” and Thomas insists that “yes, that is considered an end run, that people who still want to find a peaceful solution seem to be running into a brick wall.” *  At the Apr. 1, 2002 daily White House press briefing, when hundreds of Israel civilians—Jewish and Arab—and foreign visitors were being murdered during the Palestinian “al-Aqsa intifada,” Thomas, now a Washington columnist for Hearst, asked White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer: “Does the president think that the Palestinians have a right to resist 35 years of brutal military occupation and suppression?” Fleischer responds that President George W. Bush supports an Israeli-Palestinian peace process leading to a two-state solution, and the administration’s “focus is on peace between Israelis and Palestinians.” Legal and moral distinctions between resistance and terrorism aside, Thomas persisted: “But does he [the president] think they have a legitimate right to fight for their land?” Fleischer: “Helen, I do not accept the description or the premise of your question and the manner that you asked it.” Thomas, muttering: “Occupation, 35 years.” * In a 2004 speech to the Al-Hewar Center near Washington, D.C., a few days before the third anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Thomas, then 84, returned to her favorite obsessions: “Good evening, fellow terrorists .... or is it evil ones? I simply say so because I presume that most of you are against the invasion and the occupation of Iraq.” She declared that “... It turns out (can you imagine?) that even Middle Easterners—Arabs—will fight for their own land. They are what we call the insurgents, or terrorists, or even the enemy. They’re the enemy in their own country, trying to defend their own land .... During World War II, those who resisted the Nazi occupation were heralded for their resistance against tyranny. But when Arabs do that, do they get that kind of salute? The Palestinians who resist every day the tyrannical occupation are in the same boat ....” Icon with feet of clay * In a May 19, 2004 criticism of Democratic Party presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry for having voted to authorize use of force against Iraq, Thomas complains that “on the Middle East, Kerry is simply a ‘me too’ echo of Bush when it comes to endorsing Israel’s illegal land grab on the Palestinian-occupied West Bank.” Never mind that Israel won the West Bank in self-defense during the 1967 Six-Day War, that the land previously had been illegally occupied by Jordan, or that by 2004 Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization/Palestinian Authority had twice rejected Israeli-U.S. proposals for a West Bank and Gaza Strip state in exchange for peace. * During the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, Thomas used a White House press briefing to accuse the Israelis and Americans of having “gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine.” The late Tony Snow, formerly a nationally syndicated columnist and then White House press secretary, replied “Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view.” * Thomas’ Israel problem went deeper than Israeli control of the West Bank. In a Jan. 22, 2007 interview on the radio program “Democracy Now!” Thomas told host Amy Goodman “if you were a Palestinian — and they were 85 percent in the majority when the British decided that that could be the Jewish homeland — I mean, what would you think? Americans have to put themselves in other people’s positions. Put yourself an Iraqi. I mean, we invade a country without any cause, because it was there. “The British have no right to give. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was falling apart. They [Great Britain] didn’t own Palestine. They got a mandate through the League of Nations, but they had no right to give it away.” For Thomas, the reality that the League of Nations granted Great Britain the Palestine mandate in part because London already had pledged, in the Balfour declaration, to assist in the re-establishment of the ancient Jewish national home did not exist. Those who lamented Thomas’ 2010 resignation and praised her work at her death included Hamas (Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement), responsible for the murders of hundreds of Israelis and listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and other countries. A few journalists looked at the Helen Thomas icon and saw a clay idol. Jack Shafer’s article about the “grand dame” of the White House press corps for the Mar. 3, 2003 edition of online Slate magazine was headlined “Screw You, Mr. President. Helen Thomas Used to Ask Questions in Press Briefings. Now She Makes Speeches.” Shafer wrote, “Thomas’ opinion columns are a model of restraint when compared with the snarky speeches she delivers in lieu of asking questions at White House briefings.” Her “talent for speechifying at news conferences dates to her career as a reporter.” Miami Herald critic Glenn Garvin likewise had Thomas’ number in a 2008 review of what he called “the fawning HBO documentary,” Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas At The White House ("Documentary Forgets to Ask Hard Questions," Aug. 18, 2008). Garvin said that in her nearly half-century covering presidents; Thomas “broke no major White House story.” Though she “is routinely referred to these days as iconic, legendary, and fearless, journalism has little to do with it. She’s celebrated not for her work as a journeyman reporter at a second rate wire service or as a virtually unread political columnist .... Her reputation really derives from scolding, tendentious speeches nominally delivered as ‘questions’ ....” The Washington Post’s Tom Shales, in a moderately complimentary review of the HBO production, said it omitted Thomas’ “stridency in criticizing Israel and defending its enemies.” The Post headlined his critique, “A Story With a Few Holes; Portrait of Helen Thomas Obscures Flaws” (Post, August 18, 2008). “The film never hints at Thomas’ anti-Israeli rhetoric” or shows that “especially during the current administration, her ‘questions’ at press briefings have been more like tirades.” After some in the White House press corps excused Thomas following her 2010 “get the hell out of Palestine” meltdown, Lanny J. Davis, former special counsel to President Clinton, said “if she had asked all blacks to go back to Africa, what would the White House Correspondents Association position be as to whether she deserved White House press room credentials—much less a privileged honorary seat?”  The Post’s media critic at the time, Howard Kurtz, wrote a column headlined “Tough love might have saved ‘Aunt Helen’” (June 14, 2010). “There she goes again. That was the eye-rolling reaction in the White House pressroom when Helen Thomas would go off on one of her rants about the Middle East. She had been there for so long, was so admired by female journalists, and was such a curmudgeonly character, that she was regarded as everyone’s eccentric aunt. “… It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that she was a member in good standing of a tightly knit club that refused to question why a woman whose main job seemed to be to harangue press secretaries and presidents deserved a front-row seat in the briefing room.” But “journalists, especially those who spend a great deal of time together, don’t usually turn on each other. If Thomas was spewing bias and bile, the reasoning went, what was the harm?” The harm, from the late ’80s on, was that news media tolerance and even adulation of Helen Thomas as a journalistic exemplar undermined the credibility of journalism in general.   via Camera

Scottish Universities Hotbeds of Anti-Jewish Sentiment

The greatest problem to tackling anti-Jewish incitement is the denial that there is any such problem. The facts, as we have seen, tell a rather different story.

A charity ball organized by the University of St. Andrew's Jewish Society, guarded by plain-clothes police officers, was held in secret last week after threats were made against staff at the original venue. The increasing security and secrecy surrounding this annual student event is an illustration of the sentiments aimed at Jewish students in Scotland.

The ball was originally supposed to be held at the Golf Hotel in St. Andrews, a small University town on the east coast of Scotland. After a campaign organized by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a number of threats were directed at the hotel's staff, and a number of violent comments were posted on social media, with one protester writing: "Friday we send them into hell."

The Golf Hotel cancelled the event over "safety concerns." One member of the Jewish student society said that the decision to cancel the event was "pathetic…. They [the Golf Hotel] had no right to violate their part of the contract. The Golf Hotel is scared of them. A victory does not come from bullying people into submission, it comes from engaging people and opening their minds."

Although activists from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign [SPSC] were able to pressure the hotel into cancelling the charity ball, it was held secretly at another location, and raised over three times the amount of money for its nominated charities.

The SPSC offers a free book to all new members: Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People -- a book the central argument of which is that the Jewish people, as a single collectivity, do not exist. Last year, the group also protested in support of a student at St. Andrews, Paul Donnachie, who was charged and found guilty of racially abusing a Jewish student.

In 2006, the SPSC commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day by performing a reading of "Perdition," a play that claims the Holocaust was a joint venture between Zionists and Nazis. In 2009, the group commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day by running an event with Azzam Tamimi, a spokesperson for the terror group Hamas. And in 2010, the group reproduced the winning entry from Iran's offensive Holocaust cartoon competition of 2006.

Senior SPSC member John Wight has previously promoted a website called the "Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust." Wight has said: "As soon as the scales fall from the eyes of international Jewry with regard to the racist and fascist ideology that is Zionism, the world will begin to emerge from the iron heel of war and brutality in the Middle East."

Similarly, Edinburgh PSC chair Mike Napier has referenced a number of neo-Nazi websites in an article that vindicated the murder of eight Jewish students at a religious school in Jerusalem, on the grounds that the school is "the main educational and training centre of the fanatical Israeli settler movement," and that the students are taught to regard Gentiles as cattle and to use Arabs for "medical experiments" and to send "Arabs to the gas chambers."

The "We are all Hana Shalabi Network" also supported the protest against the St. Andrews Jewish Society. This group campaigns in support of Hana Shalabi, a member of the Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad. In 2012, Shalabi visited Tehran as part of a delegation from the Islamic Jihad movement. In front of the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Shalabispoke of her commitment to "jihad and resistance" and praised the Iranian revolution in 1979 as the "beginning of a new era."

Across Scotland, Jewish students regard the line between anti-Israel activism and anti-Jewish incitement as wearing dangerously thin. Several months ago, a number of Jewish students the University of Edinburgh abandoned their courses because of the "toxic atmosphere" on campus.

Moreover, the University of Glasgow is a participant in a European Union-funded program, "Lifelong Learning in Palestine," in which the Islamic University of Gaza is one of the main beneficiaries. The Islamic University of Gaza is the "the brain trust and engine room of Hamas," the Palestinian terror group that rules Gaza. In 2008, Hamas was using the University to build explosives and rockets for use against Israeli civilians.

In 2011, security guards had to step in to protect Arab-Israeli diplomat Ishmael Khaldi at the University of Edinburgh, after a student mob surrounded him while screaming "Viva, Viva Palestina."

Increasingly, Jewish students' choice over which university to attend is influenced by the potency of anti-Israel sentiment. The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities has reported a rise in the number of inquiries from parents and potential students in the US and Europe about the safety of Jewish students.

In 2011, the British ambassador to Israel, Matthew Gould, claimed that the image of Universities being "hotbeds of anti-Israel sentiment" was false. University authorities alsodownplay the extent of the campus extremism. Last month, Baroness Warsi, the Minister of State for Faith and Communities, and Nicola Dandridge, the head of Universities UK, both claimed that the problem of university extremism is greatly exaggerated. The facts, as we have seen, tell a rather different story.

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